


Inevitable

by starling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starling/pseuds/starling
Summary: Major Endgame spoilers ahead*****What happens in the 2012 timeline, stays in the 2012 timeline. Loki has the Tesseract, Steve has been told Bucky is alive, and HYDRA think Steve is one of them. Press play.Planning for this to be a vehicle for giving characters time and space to process things, and more dumb spacetime nonsense.





	Inevitable

**May 2012**

The briefcase slid along the floor and fell open to reveal the Tesseract, brilliant and blue and otherworldly. The SHIELD agents were fast but Loki was faster; he ducked down and reached out to grab it, his hands still bound by the anti-magic cuffs.  It was his last gamble though, and in the split second he had before he was attacked again, he willed the Tesseract to take him away. _Earth but not New York,_ he thought.

In a sudden rush of bright blue light, Loki found himself standing in a garden. He had a vague impression of bystanders, and willed himself invisible. He was surrounded by grass and well-kept flowerbeds, besides an enormous ruined stone structure, its high arches open to the white-grey sky and ivy climbing up in places. A few humans were sitting around, some eating and drinking, others wandering around fairly aimlessly.

Loki tried to take a step forward and nearly collapsed to his knees, the sudden weight of his own body taking him by surprise. Instead he sat down on a vaguely sloped area of grass and gave himself a moment to pause. His heart was pounding against his chest, sweat beading on his forehead, his breaths coming quick and shallow. He had that same old peculiar stretched-out feeling he’d had on and off for the past few days. Like he was completely translucent, little more than a vessel for the magic.

He sometimes forgot the toll it took. When he was holding the Tesseract, it didn’t feel like it was wearing him away. It was the easiest and most powerful feeling in the world.  

His handcuffs had melted away, or at least were sufficiently deformed that Loki was able to twist his wrists out of them with little difficulty. They were clever little things, but no match for the energy of the Tesseract, and he discarded the twisted metal remnants on the ground beside him.

“Lily, _no!”_ came a sharp female voice, and Loki looked up to see a family; a youngish woman and two girls, maybe eight and ten, the younger of whom had clearly smeared her ice cream down her elder sister’s dress. He smiled. “Apologise to your sister!” the woman demanded fruitlessly, as the young Lily started to cry. The woman spoke English, so the Tesseract had definitely done the job.   _Earth but not New York._

After a few moments of watching, Loki was impatient to know where he was. He made himself visible again, this time exchanging his triumphal robes for a pair of black jeans and a dark green t-shirt to avoid attention. He walked through the gardens, past a large museum and a series of bewildered owls in a tent, and shortly came across a map. He realised the joke the Tesseract had played on him.

He was in the city of York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**June 2012**

When his phone rang, Steve was sitting on his sofa thinking about Bucky.

He’d always thought about Bucky, of course, how could he not? His best friend who taught him to shave, who tried so very hard to teach him to talk to girls, who used to finish the fights that Steve started. His best friend who was a soldier, a prisoner of war, one among around 85 million dead from the Second World War (he’d looked it up).

 Steve thought about Bucky every day. He’d see tall men with brown hair and stubble and suddenly get a little jolt of false recognition, or he’d see a train crossing a valley on a high bridge, or a funfair. If something bizarre happened to him, or he made a stupid and funny mistake, his first thought even now was often to tell Bucky, and only after a second or two would his memory catch up to him. When he’d furnished this little flat in Washington D.C., assembling IKEA furniture by himself and squinting at paintings trying to see if they were nailed in straight, he’d wished Bucky could have been there.  And not just because it took him two hours to build his bed by himself.

But this was different. This time, he wasn’t just remembering Bucky with little flashes of memory or emotion. This time, he was thinking practically. How to get from point A (Steve, alone in a flat) to point B (Steve and Bucky) and whether it was even possible.  For the first time, he was almost allowing himself to hope that he wasn’t helpless. That maybe, Bucky was still out there. That he could replace his grief with a mission.

He often felt guilty for never mentioning what Loki had said, about Bucky being alive. He hadn’t mentioned it to Fury, or any of the other Avengers, or even his SHIELD-assigned therapist who he’d now had three polite factual conversations with. It had been a month and Steve was surprised how easily he’d kept the secret. How easily he’d pretended that he only wanted to bring Loki to justice. Like he wanted to bring Loki in _alive_ so badly from purely a moral code (as if they’ve all forgotten he was trained to be a soldier) rather than his real motivation – that he was so convinced Loki _knew something about Bucky_ and he needed to know the truth.

He felt like he was maybe betraying someone, or something, by the fact that something _Loki_ said was the all-consuming thought that filled his days, morning till evening, the same cadence in Steve’s own voice, short of breath but with sincerity and urgency, _“Bucky’s alive.”_

He knew it was a distraction tactic. Of course he knew. He’d had the upper hand, and Loki knew exactly how to disarm him. Nat or Fury would say the same thing.

But still. They never found a body.

Steve was thinking about Bucky when his phone rang, but he answered promptly, sliding his finger across the bottom of the screen like he’d been shown. “Steve Rogers speaking,” he answered.

“Steve,” Fury acknowledged. Fury always called from unknown numbers. It was, Steve now understood, ridiculous. He _had_ a phone, and Steve knew his number, but still every time Fury called the number was blocked. Steve had answered his phone to so many timewasting calls because of this, well beyond the point where getting a phone call was new and exciting.  

“We’ve got energy readings that match the Tesseract’s energy, in the north of England. Romanoff and Barton are on their way to the airport. Are you ready?”

“It’s show time,” Steve answered, more confidently than he felt.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
